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All You Ever Wanted To Know About Tennis Elbow

Monday, February 29, 2016

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Tennis Elbow

A phenomenon not reserved for just those who spend hours on the tennis court trying to hit the next best service, or playing a tremendous volley, the medical condition called the Tennis Elbow in fact has a very large area of influence. It’s a condition that afflicts more numbers of non-tennis players than those who are regular at the game.

What Is Tennis Elbow?

It is often known as an ‘overuse’ kind of injury which in medical terms is called Lateral Epicondylalgia. It results from a continuous stretching of the wrist and the strenuous overuse of the muscle of that area owing to the resistance caused due to impact or strain due to stretching. There is acute tenderness and pain in the tendons that are located in the forearm region and attached to the elbow.

Manual work such as bricklaying, painting and whitewashing, carpentry and even data entry-the kind of work that requires the same action to be repeated over and over again, is the major cause.

Prominent Symptoms

Pain is the first sign and that too in the outer elbow region and more so after repetitive kind of action is performed. Some other significant symptoms include:

Pain in the forearm and loosening of grip in the wrist area due to this pain.

Acute pain as one tries to extend one’s forearm and wrist.

Numbing and sharp pain around the outside elbow region, the wrist as well as the forearm.

A consistent heightening of pain.

Treating Tennis Elbow

Without a doubt physiotherapy is one of the safest routes to ease the pain yet it is advisable to make a proper assessment of the management of this issue depending on the kind of lifestyle and the source of the cause as on how to make the best possible amendment viable to help treat the condition better. This could require an individualized treatment pattern and cannot be done in some generalized way.

Alternate methods to address the condition:

Mobilization of the neck and the elbow in a manner that it will gain more fluid movement and help ease the stress on the tendons affected.

Kinesio Taping For Maximum Support-A new age manner of giving a firm support to affected muscles and tendons of the region through Kinesio taping is one that is gathering great favor from practitioners and patients alike. Reduction of stress in the region due to the support from the taping allows muscle relaxation, healing and reduction of pain.

Exercising Your Way to Recovery

The best way to ensure reduction in recurrence is by exercising so as to build better muscle strength and avert further injury.

A physiotherapist will design an exercise program that will increase the duration and the kind of exercise over time so as to make it increasingly intensive. With the passage of time, the tendons and muscle in the arm will begin to respond. It will lead to two results- ability to handle more kinds of defined movements and the ability to handle more weight.

Here’s the exercise that helps this most important tendon and muscle group:

Stretch your arm out in front of you with the palm facing downwards.

Now bend your arm wrist down so that your fingers are pointed towards the floor.

With the other hand to hold it down-till you feel a mild stretch-but no pain.

Keep on holding for 15 seconds.

Massaging of Soft Tissue

There is a world of great benefit to acquire through a massage as it leads to negating of tension, building of better fiber alignment and strengthening of soft tissue.

Letting a tennis elbow go untreated will make it a recurring problem; the kind that will keep troubling you and even last up to 2 years. A good physiotherapy support is the best and safest way to get over this painful debilitating condition-so much better than steroid injections.

Contact Greater West Physio on 02 9670 3800 to get a early treatment assessment to work out the modalities on how to address proactively your Tennis Elbow Condition.